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You Will Love This!

I posted about making Krylon Looking Glass ornaments recently and promised you some further ideas. Well, my daughter came up with my two favorites. You might remember my post about the Cotton Field In My Kitchen where I shared about harvesting and proofing all the dried goodies God leaves us in the fall. Well, when the girls and I were crafting all those goodies after Thanksgiving dinner was cleaned up, these are some of the gorgeous ornaments they came up with. I love it!

This one she filled with fake snowflakes, Crepe Myrtle Pods and Crepe Myrtle Bark. Then she used a chalk marker and wrote on it.

On this one she filled the bottom with a cotton boll and sprinkled Crepe Myrtle Pods on top. I LOVE THESE!!! And so easy! LOL that is if you have the vision, which I didn't! I just knew there would be great ideas for using the ornaments I had used Looking Glass on the backs of, but I simply couldn't come up with a single idea! I adore these! Way to go honey!

Last year I shared this paper snowflake I made using a tutorial at www.remodelaholic.com, one of my favorite blogs.

This year I saw someone thought up a great variation. She made the same snowflake, but out of burlap stiffened with ModPodge! Her post is here. Well of course I had to try it too! So when the girls were home for Thanksgiving, we made them too. It was kinda fun how the stiffening made them shapeable, not as delicate as the card stock ones.

We did change how she joined the six parts in the center. See the pretty circle in the center? Very nice!

I hope you are taking time to enjoy this holiday season with loved ones. It won't come again!
Stop back soon as I have more goodies for you! Merry Christmas!

Well, I was just at his site and found that someone has made a video using these adorable paper models of his and it's precious! I hope you take a moment to watch and be blessed! It's on Vimeo here http://vimeo.com/82613542

We moved South when the girls were very small, so all the quintessential Southern things have always been very special to us - including cotton. Maybe especially cotton as we lived in the country with cotton fields all around us.

When they saw the cotton and cotton burs I'd collected they wanted to make trees. They took the styrofoam cones and hot glued the cotton to cover them then accented the trees with cotton burs. I myself want to make one that is covered with cotton then stolidly covered with burs like I did the wreaths (read about them here), but alas, I ran out of burs.

For about two months the house was filled with bags and trays of every kind of dried thing I could collect, pinecones, acorns and caps, Crepe Myrtle Pods and bark, Mimosa pods, Magnolia pods and berries, cotton bolls and burs and more. I collected, proofed in the oven and then the house filled with bags of them all waiting for the girls at Thanksgiving. It seemed they were everywhere, yet, we ran out of everything except the Mimosa pods and Crepe Myrtle Bark which have proven to be too delicate to use much. I still think the bark would be gorgeous in a clear glass cylinder, but I don't have hone. I'm hoping to come up with more ideas to use these two with as I've got bunches left!
I had also gotten each of them a beautiful decorative box and filled them with this luscious assortment of goodies from home to use as vase filler and other decorative uses.

This is how their trees turned out.

So unique! And doesn't my Upscaled Microwave Cart against the fridge in the kitchen after The Accidental Remodel this year make the perfect place to take pictures??? Oh yeah! Serendipity blessings abound! It was so crazy cooking my first holiday meals in the new kitchen...a stove that works?!?! Counters???? The new sink and faucet???? Yeah! We all just kept being amazed at it all. Thank YOU God for all Your countless blessings! May we all be constantly aware so we don't take them for granted, but give You thanks at all times as we should! Whooohooo! You rock God!

This was a fun ornament and I'm sure there are many great ideas to go with from here.

I got the flat round glass ornaments from Michael's on half price sale, so $3 for four. I pulled the hangers out and sprayed five light coats of Krylon Looking Glass spray paint on only one one side. Our Michael's isn't carrying the paint any more, but Walmart had it for $8.99 and Hobby Lobby had it for $11.99 minus a 40% coupon which made it the winner! Plus I just love that store. It's bright and clean with beautiful displays and friendly employees. I love what the company stands for and getting to sing along with worship songs as I shop! Sometimes I buy things there just to support the company, kind of like a mission! They have been able to bring Christian issues to the forefront of the news this year, along with Chick-fil-a and I want to support them with prayers and business. LOL and NO, I'm not being compensated for this, it's my own feelings. LOL STRONG ones! :)

When dry and turned over, the back is a mirror! You can fill them with anything and there's the cool mirror background!

I plan to put old black and white photos inside. This one is of the woman washing Jesus' feet with her tears and wiping them with her hair. Very special to me. I think that vintage black and white will look even better.

I coiled the photo around a pencil and then inserted it. I used long tweezers to flatten and position the picture as I wanted.

I'll be back soon to share some gorgeous ornaments my daughters made with these Looking Glass reflective back ornaments, so be sure to come back! I've got lots more to share!

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! Thanks for dropping in for our Christmas Home Tour! You'll see tons of the projects I have shared here over the years. If you want the tutorials, just click "Christmas" in the label cloud. If you have any trouble finding what you want, just drop me an e-mail. I'm happy to help!

I am a bit late getting my home tour posted, but posting a Christmas project almost every day has kept me very busy. But boy is it fun to make pretty things and I'm so blessed to be able to share them all here with all of you! Thank you SO MUCH for coming by!

A happy addition to our Christmas home this year is Merry & Bright, two reindeer I found for next to nothing at Old Time Pottery. They each so displayed the personalities of my two daughters that I simply couldn't leave them there. The first day I saw them I was a "good wife" and left without them, but I couldn't sleep that night with their little faces in my mind. So, first thing the next morning, I went and brought them home where they belong! That's better! Funny thing is that both girls and my husband instantly knew which was which!

They have
the tiniest little multi-colored lights wrapping their antlers. I love
them just as they are, but my oldest brought the whopping six batteries
it took to light them and wow! It's blindingly brilliant! Even in the
day time it's actually painful! Needless to say, they aren't being lit!
LOL Rudolph must have had a LED nose!

I did post some pictures of the table earlier, but I added to it, so here's how it ended up.

These pictures kind of amaze me given that so much of this year our house was a disaster due to The Accidental Remodel. Everything from the kitchen filled the rest of the living area and the kitchen, well, if you followed the project, you know how it was. Now, for us to have our first holiday season with the improvements is being kind of stunning to us. We still can't believe we are getting to live here and can't stop thanking God. The biggest change was in the kitchen, but we also changed drapes and pillows in the living and dining rooms which really changed the look and feel of the space.

It's funny to me that this year we have all seen how much my oldest daughter has affected me in decor. I worked closely with her rebuilding her home after the tornado in 2011. When we started the Accidental Remodel this spring, I went with her trim color! Mascarpone by Benjamin Moore. Then in looking for a neutral soft tan for the walls, after eleven tries, I ended up using her Yosemite Sand!

This Christmas brought another whole level of changes in our home connected to her. She hadn't replaced hardly any of her Christmas decor, so we did this year. She chose bright Christmas red, white and silver as her palette. It looks so stunning in her home! She did a fantastic job decorating. Then, without even noticing it, Christmas red goodies started showing up in MY home! I have always been into the aged, weathered and rich colors. The seventeen years we have had this house has always had a deep maroon/burgandy as the accent color, so it is a bit surprising to end up with a house FULL of bright Christmas red accents this year! And we are loving it! I already had a few red accents in the new kitchen and two red pillows on the sofas, but now they are everywhere!

My favorite touch is the two new throws I got from Sam's Club. Our house is cold and covering up is serious business to start with, but I do like snuggling into a lovely bit of warm. They were also unbelievable prices, $15 and $17!!! And every bit as delicious as those $80 and up at Pottery Barn. I chose two, wait for it, Christmas red ones! One is velvety and the other is two layers of fluffy sherpa bound in velvet. They are both too marvelous for words, but I simply can't get enough of the sherpa. Mmmmmm! I love them so much that I've bought about a dozen now for others. Unbelievable blessing both in yummy warmth, and the shockingly breathtaking difference they made in the decor. With all the new Christmas reds, these throws just put it over the top, pulling all the rooms together. So delicious! Baby Boo agrees!

Can you believe she's just turned five years old? Do you remember when she first came to us, sick and almost dead at four months old? She seems to have passed a milestone in October and has finally filled out and grown a good coat of fur. I think something wonderful and mysterious has happened in her and we are so grateful! Our little...HUGE blessing from God! THANK YOU FATHER!!!!

So, from our home to yours, we pray God will bless and keep you all in His loving care and that this coming year will be the best yet for ALL of us! God bless our servicepeople and those who risk their lives daily to protect us at home as well, the police, fire and EMTs. God keep all these heroes safe! May God bless America this coming year and remove the cancerous evil that is killing our democracy and restore us to our former place of grace as the beacon of hope and Christian righteousness for the world. In Jesus' precious and holy name AMEN! Remember, He's not the babe in the manger any more, but the Savior of the entire world and soon coming triumphant King! We need to pick our side carefully cause there are no "do overs" on this one and the choice is eternal! Happy New Year!

Today's treat is a tree my daughters and I made with all natural dried goodies as a project when they were home for Thanksgiving.

I just LOVE all the dried treasures God leaves for us in the fall. They are free for the gathering and you can do SO many things with them to make your home warm and beautiful and great gifts that mean more because you made them yourself. You can see how I harvested and prepared the materials here.

After Thanksgiving dinner was all cleaned up, we started crafting! Gotta make the most of those precious moments loved ones are near - make memories! I had been bouncing ideas of craft projects off both the girls as the holiday approached. We came up with a list and I had everything ready when they got here.

For this project we used a foam cone from the craft store (don't forget those
wonderful 40% off coupons!). I got the last bags of small pine cones I
could find and they were at Hobby Lobby for $2.50 each at 50% off. Add the Crepe Myrtle Pods I had collected and prepared and some hot glue and we were off!

We each had a project we were working on so it was easy for everyone to take turns on this tree. The first step was covering the foam cone as densely as we could with the little pine cones. Then we added layers of cones to that to make the Hershey's Chocolate Kiss shape. After that it was just a matter of filling in all the gaps with the amazing dried Crepe Myrtle Pods. The pods are not only gorgeous, but they come a variety of sizes and in all stages of opening - some still closed. Perfect for plugging gaps and making lovely garland like clusters all around the tree! Loooooooove it!

Isn't it just gorgeous??? If I hadn't run out of materials I'd have made more. I'll just have to collect more of everything next fall! Lord willing!

We had planned to spray this one brass and possibly tip the edges with Diamond Dust, a light transparent glitter that I'm crazy in love with. Then as we worked we thought maybe to just tip the
edges with gold, but in the end it was too scrumptious natural to do
anything to it at all! This one went home with baby girl! It's a fun shape. I just love all the different cone based trees that are around these days! I have a wish list of styles I want to make - do you? Thanks for dropping by!

This is what I did with some of the extras and I'm over the moon about them!

For the Santa's belt one, I ModPodged the ornament and glittered it bright red. I let it dry with a pencil in it in a cup. Then I hot glued a black grosgrain ribbon around the middle. I glued on thin sparkly silver ribbon to look like a buckle. Too cute! I think these are cuter because these are the flat round ornaments. Just as I was finishing the buckle, my husband breezes through and points out it's on the wrong side for a man...I'd totally forgotten there was a difference! Too bad. It was glued!

For the striped one, I put a band of double stick tape around the middle and glittered it red. Then I did the same with thinner double stick tape (Terrifically Tacky Tape from Hobby Lobby) and glittered it shimmering white. I know, it looks silver here, but it's dreamy snowy white! I was happy with the white glitter bands, but the tape wouldn't hold enough red to make it solid red, so I painted ModPodge right over the top of it and glittered it red again. Yeah! Love it!

The candle stick is from Old Time Pottery for $3.99, but I saw it at Target yesterday for $14.99. Score! The candle was just over $2 at Hobby Lobby today...mmmm cinnamon! And the greens were $2 there too. The astonishingly handsome and playful penguin pillows I got for $5 each at Walmart years ago. They are filled with tiny styrofoam beads and are so fun to hug and pose! They are family favorites every year!

And the last credit goes to the photo location...drum roll...THANK YOU GOD for our new kitchen! It was seven hard months of work, but oh my! We still can't believe it and thank Him every time we come in...LOL or even see it from another room! This pic is on the remade microwave cart, now sporting the glass top I'd wanted, a gift of love from my girls, and it's against my beloved old fridge - may it never die! You can read all about The Accidental Remodel here. And we did it all for $4,060!!!! And that includes a fantastic new stove from Lowe's, granite, seventeen chests on our new shelves and custom made dish racks! Praise God!!!

You can see other things I did with glitter and clear glass balls here.

Hope you are having fun with your last minute preparations. Do NOT forget to enjoy the moments! It's not all about the final result, it's the journey, especially when it's with loved ones. God bless you all and come back, I have lots more for you!

I finally made a twine sphere to add to all those I've made from natural dried goodies. The twine was $2.53 at Lowe's and the styrofoam balls were six to a pack for $6 at Michael's, but I had a 40% coupon, yeah!

I started with my dear Father's weird tweezers that are super long and open when you pinch them and are tight when you let go. I pinched the tip of the twine and started coiling it up the length of my tweezers. I secured the other end with a clip for about 15 minutes. I did this so that when I started attaching it to the ball, the first coils would be tight and perfectly round. When I took it off the tweezers it kept the coil perfectly!

I started with a blob of low melt glue on the ball and just kept going and voila!

Fun and pretty and a fraction of the cost of buying one. Thanks for dropping by. There are lots more goodies to come, so be sure to come back!

I fell in love with Pottery Barn's golden acorn vase filler years ago, but I don't see any
reason to pay that price when I can do it myself and have some fun! So,
Boo and I collected acorns on our walks. The weather is so
wonderful and the fall colors so pretty, me and Boo and my bag of
acorns! An hour in my oven on low and they are safe from buggy
surprises. I had on hand is Krylon's Chrome spray paint, so first I made silver ones here.

It turned out
that silver was the perfect color for the coffee table! This is how I used them, to tie my
two focal points together on my coffee table. I love the sparkly
bird/branches. Of course I'm the Mama bird and the two sparkly babies
are my lovely daughters! The story of the Pussy Willow and Kusudama Balls is here, the Cloche is three posts back and the cotton is from my Cotton Field In My Kitchen post here, if you're interested.

The
sparkly branch was from Michael's many years ago. The birds were from
Trees n' Trends years ago, but I've seen the little ones at Pier 1 this
year. The cloche and chrome paint are from Hobby Lobby and the candle
inside from Bath & Body Works. The "diamonds" in the cloche are
from Hobby Lobby. The acorns and cotton are straight from God, their
Creator!

But I still longed for golden ones, so I used a 40% off coupon for the 18 karat Gold Leaf Paint Pen at Michael's. It was regularly $8.99 and no I'm not being compensated for this, just sharing so you can find the goodies and have fun too!

Then I learned that though the Chrome spray paint worked fine on the acorns, the paint pen didn't. It was dull and soaked right in drying to a sick greenish color. Obviously they needed to be sealed first. So I painted the acorns with ModPodge to seal them and let them dry on wax paper. Then when I used the gold pen the results were stunning! Shiny and bright with only one fun coat. Can't say that ModPodging all those acorns was fun tho and then turning each one to be sure they dried on all sides.

I also learned that ModPodge on the caps makes them very dark and I chose not to do that on the gold ones, just the acorn bodies. Aren't they lovely? The jar on the left is just ModPodge and looks yummy too. The golden beauties are in the avocado jar on the right! You've got to do this, so fun!

Thanks for dropping by and be sure to come back for more great projects!